HERALD: What is your field of specialty?
YASHVIT NAIK: Teknorix is a product based start-up which builds and promotes its own software products, unlike most Goan start-ups which build software for other clients. Some of our products are: (a) Jobsoid – a cloud based recruitment platform; (b) RIX Adhoc – an ad hoc reporting component for SaaS applications and (c) Pixie CRM – a sales and marketing CRM for SMEs.
On gaining expertise in SaaS Product Lifecycle Management while rolling out our products, we decided to diversify and leverage our product development expertise to global startups and enterprises.
We now implement large projects for global customers and build end-to-end software products for them. Our expertise lies in conceptualisation of product idea, technical design and architecture, UI/UX strategy and design to development of web/mobile applications and managing Dev-ops.
HERALD: How can your company help Goans, specially start-ups?
YN: Our product, Jobsoid, is used by many Goan enterprises, both large and small, to manage their recruitment and has received a very good response. However, our major client base is located globally.
HERALD: Who are your major customers?
YN: Jobsoid is used by over 2000 companies across 40 industries in 97 countries. These include small start-ups, mid-sized businesses, recruiting agencies as well as enterprise customers with hundreds of users spread across multiple locations.
Teknorix has also developed various web and mobile applications for customers across the globe. One such project is a large ERP software product developed for a client in the US, which is used by their enterprise customers including Facebook HQ.
HERALD: What made you decide to launch your company outside Goa?
YN: As a global SaaS company, we decided to incorporate as ‘Jobsoid Inc’ in the US last year for obvious business related reasons. However, our development center is located in Verna, Goa and we do not have any plans on moving that outside Goa.
HERALD: Why do some Goans have companies in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune etc?
YN: It was popularly believed that setting up base in some of these cities helps attract good talent. Hence a few Goan start-ups have ventured into these cities in the past.
We feel Goa has great talent in the industry. It is just a matter of finding the right talent and nurturing talent to suit your requirements, which might be a little challenging.
There is a recent trend of Goan talent moving back home. We feel this is primarily because of a surge in the quality of opportunities in Goa.
HERALD: How do you see the Goa market? Are you planning to spread out?
YN: Incidentally, we are not focused on building products for the Goan market. We have built products for the global market. We believe that the main challenge is being able to build a global product with a keen eye for detail and a great user experience.
We have found that it is much easier to sell SaaS remotely to a customer based in Hawaii as compared to a local business in India. With the SaaS model, most of the selling is done by Internet marketing alone. From positioning the product right, helping customers discover the product, demos and free trials. So customers are already experiencing the product when the sales team steps in as expert advisors.
HERALD: Where do you see yourself five years from now?
YN: We bootstrapped our product start-up over the last 4 years to create a self-sustaining business model. Though growing organically takes a bit longer, it gives us the freedom to focus on growing the business and not having to answer to or get influenced by investors. Our products are loved by customers globally which has made our journey very exciting.
We enision of becoming a leading product based company with a suite of SaaS products to compete with global players in the Silicon Valley.
